Recover
by oldhokages
Summary: Sakura really didn't know what she had been thinking when she allowed Naruto to test his jutsu on her. Minato didn't know what to think at all. AU.
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note: **I posted this originally on July 14, 2010 on my then secondary account Pure Thunder with the title _Not Lost, Just Misplaced. _I posted it again in 2011 (?) under the title _Some Times_ and now am posting it a third time with the new title,_ Recover_. Enjoy the crackship motherfuckers.

**Pairing: **_MinaKushi, MinaSaku, slight KakaRin_

**Warnings**_: Character death, lemon_

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is (c) Masashi Kishimoto.

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**Recover : Chapter One**

_Well I can hardly stand but I really don't care to know  
And you can take my hand but I don't care where we go _

"I think he loves me."

"Are you kidding? He looks at you like you're a kitten he's about to devour!"

"He doesn't eat kittens, Forehead."

"That's not the point."

Sakura was still checking to be sure her ears were fully cleaned out as Ino turned sharply away from her, angrily flipping through a rack of dresses. Apparently, utter disbelief at her long-term frenemy's professed love for her robust teammate was not the response for which Ino had been looking. That being said, Sakura couldn't imagine exactly _what _Ino had been expecting from her. Squeals of delight? Maybe. Now that she thought about it past her initial reaction, the pairing of Ino and Choji was probably the best thing for Ino. And it was rather rude to insinuate he ate kittens.

"Ino..." Sakura said coaxingly, moving to rifle through the clothes Ino had passed over.

Ino scoffed and moved to another rack. "Not talking to you."

Perhaps it would be more difficult to make peace than Sakura had originally assumed. Ino was stubborn; she always had been. But if there was one way to make her come back to your side... well, Sakura knew exactly what it was. She just wished it wasn't so humiliating.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly, flicking a bulky sweater that she was sure she'd seen Hinata wearing last week out of her way. "I don't know why I said that... I guess it was that I was just feeling just a bit... jealous."

Ino's entire posture changed at the mention of the J-word. Slowly, the blonde turned around to face her, a perfectly manicured eyebrow raised in her direction.

"Jealous?"

Sakura bit her lip. "Well, yeah, I mean... it's really great that you've found each other..."

"And you wish you had someone now." Ino's cackle was nothing if not vicious.

"Yeah, something like that."

It was all Sakura could do not to hang her head in shame for feeding into Ino's superiority complex. But then again, it was just too dramatic not to keep their relationship in good terms. Drama was something Sakura felt she had already had enough of to last a lifetime.

"You know," Ino babbled, previous anger forgotten, "you could always just break down and date that knuckle-head Naruto."

She swatted at the offending kunoichi's arm. "No! Naruto and I aren't like that, Ino."

But they sort of... were... and Sakura knew it. Judging by the way Ino's gleaming eyes rolled in their sockets, she knew it, too. Was it that obvious? Sakura didn't know. She couldn't even really pinpoint a time when her heart had strayed away from Uchiha Sasuke (who was undoubtedly the man of her dreams, duh) and settled its affections on the whiskered jinchuriki. In all truth, Sakura wasn't even completely sure what those feelings were for him. Did she, as Ino would say, _like_-like him? Or did it go deeper than that, entering into the realms of actually loving him? The thought brought her to a subconscious gulp of fear. Loving Naruto was not on her agenda.

At least, she didn't think it was.

"Of course you aren't," Ino agreed seriously, holding up a scarlet dress to Sakura's frame and tossing it back to the rack. "That's why you totally don't care that you're about to be completely late for your lunch date with Uzumaki. And that dress was totally perfect for you, by the way."

"It's not a lunch _date, _Pig," Sakura spat without any true venom while snapping up the dress. "It's lunch with a teammate who likes pretending he's too poor to pay for his own ramen."

"So you've learned his habits now, billboard brow? Oooh. This has gone farther than I thought."

Sakura narrowed her eyes at who she had thought was her best friend. "I don't like you."

"Love ya, sweet pea."

She scowled as Ino laughed, stalking off to pay for the dress. Ino's tastes were as always impeccable and she had to admit the dress was obscenely cute. It was a simple ruched dolman mini and though the fabric was a deeper shade of red than she normally wore, she liked it all the same. With a quick check at the tag, she smiled as she calculated the price and discovered there would still be enough ryō in her wallet to pay for lunch. There was a quick and pleasant exchange of merchandise and money between herself and the clerk and Sakura left the shop with a bright blue shopping bag hung over the crook of her arm.

Being on the jonin payroll had left her with a lot more spending money than her lowly chunin's salary had awarded. She thought she had died and gone to heaven with the first fat check from an S ranked mission found its way to her bank account. She had always known being a kunoichi was a profitable profession... Sakura just couldn't say she had been expecting something quite as fabulous as what she currently enjoyed. But it did serve to make her ill of all those bills Kakashi-sensei had passed off on them through the years.

Sakura indulged herself in a bit of reminiscence as her feet plodded steadfastly in the direction of Ichiraku's, her face plastered with a small frown. She missed Kakashi a little less every day, as painful as it seemed. Forgetting him was worse than losing him and now... her sensei's name was at least a paragraph of names back on the Memorial Stone. It was stupid really, the Great Copy Nin dashing off on a routine solo mission and failing to return. Sakura personally liked to maintain he had simply gotten hurt (sort of bad, she supposed) and been nursed back to health by some sweet girl in a far away hamlet who had managed to win his heart. Sharingan Kakashi was living out the rest of his days as a simple farmer with the pretty little lady who saved him in a place where he felt free enough to show his face. Because he definitely wasn't rotting in a ditch somewhere. She refused that theory completely.

She always would.

Pushing away those thoughts with the skill and ease to compartmentalize that being a ninja had taught her, Sakura entered the familiar ramen shop with a large grin on her face. Naruto had beat her there, but that was expected. Ino was right; she was late.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Naruto called boisterously, gesturing her over to the stool beside him.

Silently she slipped into her seat and dropped her shopping by her feet. "Hey, Naruto. How long have you been here?"

"Mmm, not long," Naruto said, scratching his stubbled chin. Sakura would never know what had possessed him to try to grow a beard...

"Good. Miso?"

The blond nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah. Two miso ramen, please."

"Of course," Teuchi said with a nod, setting about preparing their food.

Sakura was vaguely aware of Naruto's eyes on her and found no surprise when she turned to meet his gaze. "Hm?"

"You just look upset, Sakura-chan," Naruto offered, rolling his shoulders in a shrug.

"Oh," she said, the syllable sounding dead on her lips. "It's nothing really."

"Kakashi-sensei?"

He was a good guesser. "Yeah."

"I miss him, too."

Naruto's hand twitched and for a heart pounding moment, Sakura thought that he might reach out and take hers but he seemed to think better of it. Almost as quick as the twitch he shoved both hands deep into his pockets. Sakura couldn't say for sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

"Soo... what's in the bag?"

"Just some dress Ino thought was adorable. You know how good her tastes are."

His expression was baffled; the boy never had and never would understand females. "Uh, yeah."

She copied his poor attempt at conversation. "Soo... when are you going to shave that thing off?"

A hand snapped from his pocket to his chin defensively, "Don't knock the beard! It's taken a long time to get it grown in this much and..."

"Kidding, Naruto," Sakura insisted with a laugh, leaning over to nudge him with her shoulder. "You look fetching."

"I think so, too."

"Naruto! That's not how you're supposed to take a compliment! You're supposed to _return_ it!"

"Two miso ramen!"

Sakura's impending wrath was sated as Teuchi placed two bowls of steaming soup before them. _Lucky Naruto_, she thought darkly as she took up a pair of chopsticks to dig in to her meal. Beside her Naruto fairly inhaled his lunch, a scene that had lost its effect on her after years of watching him gulp noodles like he had never eaten a day in his life. He finished his bowl just as Sakura was beginning to put a dent in hers and then he looked on at her expectantly.

"Fine," she huffed, taking one more bite before shoving the half eaten bowl in his direction to be devastatingly ingested to his bottomless stomach.

He slurped the final noodle with flourish. "Say, Sakura-chan, are you busy now?"

Sakura eyed him skeptically. "No..."

"So, you wouldn't mind, uh, helping me with this new jutsu, would you?"

"I'm not your guinea pig and I don't want to be," Sakura quipped immediately. "I saw what happened to Sai and what happened to Kiba and to Shikamaru."

It was a well-known fact that one of the quickest ways to becoming jonin was to invent an amazing new jutsu. One in the realm of their sensei's Chidori or of the Fourth's Hiraishin. He had tried to pass the Rasengan and its various incarnations off as his own early on, but Tsunade had told him that those were not _his_ jutsus because the basis was entirely the creative property of the Yondaime. Since then Naruto had been trying and failing for months to achieve that same level of creativity and genius. Who would have guessed he had the imagination of that pot of broth Teuchi was tending just over the counter in the kitchen?

Well, Sakura might have. Hadn't he named that stray dog he'd had for almost a week before it ran off again 'Doggie' as if it were a perfectly legitimate name?

Bless his soul.

"But Saaakura!" Naruto whined, turning on what little charm he may have possessed. "I need help, and since you're such a strong kunoichi now I thought maybe you could..."

"No."

His face fell into... oh god. It was _that _look. That one that he had been using against her for the past two years to very well mold and meld her to whatever his heart desired. It was almost angelic, the way his brow creased so slightly to make him appear sullen and his lip poked into a pout. Just how did he get his eyes to glisten like that? Sakura chewed on a nail. She had to think of something fast.

"But you were just hurt." That sounded like as good an excuse as any.

"I heal quickly."

Her expression turned incredulous. "You were in the hospital with a severely bruised lung and lacerations the size of the Land of Tea."

"I heal very quickly," Naruto replied undaunted.

Well... she really couldn't argue with him too much. She had seen those healing abilities herself.

"Alright," she agreed with an air of finality. "But if I regret this, I swear, Naruto..."

He beamed, "Thanks, Sakura-chan! I'll see you at Ground 12 in an hour."

Sakura found herself wrapped in an awkward hug and then watching as he sprinted away. Naruto had too much energy for his own good, decidedly. For the second time that day she reached into her wallet, fishing out the ryō needed to pay for the two bowls of ramen. Sakura didn't _really _mind treating Naruto to lunch every now and again; he was still on that measly chunin's salary she had once endured, and her increasingly fat wallet was matched with increasing generosity on her part.

She counted the sum (she knew it by heart) and placed it on the bar before picking up her shopping and heading home. A change of clothes was in order because it would not do well to go anywhere near a training ground with Naruto in civilian clothes and the dress she had just bought was not going anywhere close to such a destructive force as Naruto training ever if she could help it.

Her apartment was reasonably close to Ichiraku's. It was reasonably close to everything. When she turned fifteen and became fully legalized adult resident of Konoha, she had moved out of her mother's house and into the little centralized apartment. What had been Kakashi's apartment was two buildings down from her own, Sai lived a street or two over on the opposite direction near Ino, and Naruto's apartment was just a few blocks away from the ramen stand she had just left if she had headed right towards the Hokage's Tower instead of left towards her own abode. It was the perfect place for the pink haired kunoichi, close to everything and everyone she loved, as far as she knew at least. No one had figured out where Yamato lived yet, though Sakura suspected he was happy somewhere in a wooden mansion of his own design in the middle of a forest of trees he grew himself.

That sounded about right.

Sakura dropped her shopping on her bed, moving to her closet for some more battle-ready attire. It wasn't a full-on mission or even a spar for that matter so she didn't really feel as if all her gear was needed, thus bringing her to shimmy into a pair of her black shorts and vest, forgoing her skirt. A few moments later she was strapping on holsters and pouches. Medical supplies were a must where Naruto was concerned, no matter how tame the activity was supposed to be.

She found Naruto exactly where he said he would be at Ground 12 surrounded by a massive amount of rice paper and scrolls. The sight immediately struck fear into Sakura's heart, but she swallowed that feeling and closed the gate to the training ground with a satisfying snap to announce her arrival.

Naruto's head popped up and he waved her over, "Sakura-chan! I was just getting things together!"

"What are you even doing, Naruto?" Sakura asked warily, stepping around the scattered array of papers that seemed to have a near infinite number of painstakingly painted seals.

"Well..."

Sakura deadpanned. "You don't know, do you?"

"Yes!" Naruto protested, rolling up an extra large scroll before him. "It just took a few tries to get it right."

"And you're sure it's right?"

"Almost."

"I quit," Sakura said, backing away slowly. "You can come find me when you're sure this is going to do exactly what you want it to do."

"But Sakuraaaa-chaaaan!" There was that look again...

And against her better judgment Sakura said, "Fine."

"Awesome!" Naruto clapped once and jumped to his feet. "You just... uh, stand over there. And be still. I don't know how it'll work if you're moving."

Sakura's fear began to return, gnawing at the pit of her stomach. "Naruto... I'm not sure..."

"Be still!" he began to go through the motions of his experimental jutsu.

For all of thirty seconds Sakura did as she was told, remaining so still she scarcely breathed. Then she started to see just how much Naruto was fumbling through his jutsu and it dawned on her... this was a very bad took a hesitant step forward.

"Naruto..."

"Still!"

"No, I changed my mind Naruto I don't..."

But in that moment he completed his seals.

It felt as if she was flowing in every direction. It was as if she had turned to liquid and been freed of that husk of a body that had kept her trapped for so long. The freedom was both exhilarating and terrifying, but it was gone in the twinkling of an eye and Sakura's existence was shoved back into that annoying shell of a body as rudely as it had been ripped from it.

Surprisingly, none of it hurt. It was however disorienting and Sakura promptly fell down.

A groan escaped her lips to be muffled by the grass, some of which she was acutely aware she was eating. What had Naruto done to her? Whatever it was, Sakura felt sure he was going to make jonin for it. She couldn't remember a time her ass had been so thoroughly kicked by a single jutsu. And he hadn't even done it right.

"Do you think she's alive, Kakashi?"

"Of course she's alive, Gai, she's breathing."

Sakura's ears pricked. Neither of the voices sounded right, though their words and inflections were seamless to the men she knew. Wearily, she raised her head up from the unusually comfortable ground, green eyes resting on a sight they weren't quite ready to take in. Yes, that was Kakashi-sensei. Yes, that was Maito Gai. And while there wasn't too much out of place about the latter's obnoxious jumpsuit or goofy haircut, the lack of his flack jacket threw her for a loop.

And Kakashi-sensei was all wrong. He looked a bit like he was in ANBU. Sort of. Sakura had never seen a vest quite like the one her sensei wore and felt glad of it because it was very, very ugly. Then again... Kakashi never had much fashion sense. Why else would he wear that awful jonin uniform? And just what look was he going for, sleeveless or no? And since when did he wear armor?

"Urrrg..." So much for that attempt to speak. Sakura allowed her head to slump back to the earth.

"We must take her to the hospital at once!"

She felt toes in her side, prodding gently. "I don't think she's hurt that bad."

Kakashi stopped kicking her and crouched down beside her, his head near her own. He placed a hand on her shoulder and deftly flipped her onto her back in a single movement. Sakura's body protested at the motion (stay still!) but her happiness at being able to see them both outstripped any physical distress. Her eyes slid in and out of focus and she squinted hard against the glaring sunlight. Something was definitely off about the two men before her.

"But what if she's been injured!" Gai cried, genuinely concerned.

Kakashi poked her again. "She's just dizzy. We should probably be taking her to the Hokage, not the hospital."

"The Hokage?" Sakura was proud that she had found her tongue, even if her pronunciation was a little slurred.

"The leader of this village," Gai said perkily.

Kakashi prodded her again. "You do know where you are, don't you?"

"Hmmmm..."

"Let's take her to the Tower," Kakashi grunted, scooping her still limp body up.

As a medic, Sakura knew there was nothing essentially _wrong _with her body in any sense that should induce such a lethargic state. Her arms and legs were just trying to declare independence from her body and will, that was all.

Kakashi didn't smell very nice. In fact, he smelled very much like the inside of a gym locker and a pair of month old socks. The scent was a lot like every teenage boy she had ever known; an aroma only acquired by a seemingly fierce aversion to bathing regularly that shinobi seemed to develop around the age of twelve that took at least six years to grow out of properly, meaning he should have grown out of it entirely. He was what, thirty four years old now? Sakura also remembered her sensei always smelling fresh and clean and faintly like spice. She lifted her head off of his shoulder examining her sensei's face. Suddenly, her stomach clenched and she felt as if she were going to be sick. Yes, Kakashi-sensei was in his early thirties.

This Kakashi was probably thirteen. Immediately Sakura tried to summon the chakra to dispel the illusion.

She couldn't.

She buried her face back against his smelly shoulder and smiled. This was _good. _Naruto had really outdone himself this time; she had never experienced or cast a genjutsu this skillful and she couldn't break free of it despite her genjutsu talent. With something of this caliber, she now felt completely certain he would snap up that final recommendation for tokubetsu jonin, if not jonin. But when would he lift it? She tried to summon her chakra again, still finding that her reserves seemed to be nil.

"Can you walk?"

"I think so," Sakura said, pleased that her tongue was fully cooperating.

Gently, Kakashi let her down to take the steps up the Hokage Tower on her own. She wavered a bit on the first few tries, prompting Kakashi to catch her by the elbow and hoist her back up. By the first landing she had regained her legs and took the steps quickly and confidently. She walked these steps thousands of times a day it seemed on errands for Tsunade, but that didn't stop Kakashi from hovering uncomfortably close as if he thought she would tumble down the flight, nor did it stop Gai from loudly chewing his nails in worry. At the top of the Tower, Sakura moved to go right down the hall, but Kakashi caught her arm again.

"This way," he said, leading her left. Sakura was puzzled. Wasn't the Hokage's office to the right and down three doors? That was where it had been all her life.

Kakashi led her to a doorway significantly less grand than the entry to the Hokage's office Sakura knew, but inside it looked very much as if a village leader was holed up. On the far wall was a large shelf stocked with scrolls and documents Sakura imagined were only as important as they were boring (very) and a photograph of a genin team whose members she didn't recognize. To the right someone had the clever idea of bringing in an over sized dart board and nailing it to the wall. The board was now gouged through with kunai and shuriken, several piercing pictures that looked as if they had been cut from a bingo book. But the most obvious sign that this was the room where the Hokage worked was the desk and its overwhelming paperwork. And, you know, the snoozing body hiding behind the stacks of parchment was obvious, too. Sakura snorted when she saw the shock of messy blond. Of _course _Naruto would make himself Hokage. This was his illusion. Beside her she heard Kakashi sigh.

"Hokage-sama," he said, steering Sakura to a chair opposite the desk, presumably so she could sit down.

Sakura was bewildered; Kakashi was thoughtful since when exactly? The man behind the desk didn't wake up and Sakura thought she saw Kakashi frown for a moment, evidenced by the downward tug of his visible eyebrow.

Gai surged forward purposefully, _"Hokage-sama!"_

The man jolted awake immediately, blearily looking around his small office fully prepared to attack any intruders of his nap time. He seemed to relax when he saw Kakashi and Gai.

"Oh, it's just you two," he said lightly, leaning back in his chair and rubbing a sleep crusted eye, "I thought you might have been Koharu here to rail me again about sleeping on the job."

Sakura sat stone still in her seat, her green eyes trained on the blond before her as he yawned again sleepily and stretched to pop his back. It wasn't Naruto; his cheeks were as smooth and free of blemishes or marks as her own. It was someone she had only seen at least a billion times in her life before; to the right of the Sandaime and to the left of Tsunade-sama.

The Mountain didn't really do the Yondaime Hogake any justice.

"...we're here because we found this girl in Ground 8, Minato-sensei," Kakashi said, bringing Sakura back to the conversation.

"She couldn't speak!" Gai gushed, throwing up his hands, "she couldn't stand! I told Kakashi we _must_ take her to the hospital, but Kakashi said no, that we should bring her to you."

Minato blinked at Gai as he digested the energetically delivered new information, then shifted his gaze to Sakura. After a moment of careful calculation, he smiled warmly at her, a grin she knew very well not because his stone effigy was particularly cheery, but because it was the same one Naruto wore.

"Can you speak now?" he asked, still smiling. "What's your name?"

"Ayyaaauuugh..." Sakura's words failed her again and she ducked her head in embarrassment and by doing so missed Minato's momentary frown.

"Well, that's not any good," he said, trying to reach his previous level of cheer, despite being either thoroughly put out or perhaps a little bit worried, Sakura couldn't tell which. "Has she said anything since you found her?"

"A few sentences," Kakashi said with a shrug. Gai's head bobbed viciously in agreement.

Sakura watched as the Hokage thought, scratching his chin. He looked like Naruto when the boisterous boy she knew talked about his beard.

"Take her to Interrogation, Kakashi. If she can't tell us why she's here, they can find out by other means."

Sakura squeaked her protest. She had heard terrible things about Interrogation.

Minato eyed her skeptically at her reaction, wary of her seeming objection to being interrogated. He glanced back at Kakashi, who understood the look he received to mean _and hurry up with that, would you? _Kakashi gave a nod of confirmation and pulled Sakura back up by the arm, leading her out of the office and down the hall. They passed the room she knew to be the Hokage's office along the way, the offensive fume of fresh paint lingering with the scent of cut lumber perfuming that part of the hall. The office was clearly under construction, which Sakura supposed explained why the Hokage was operating out of a room roughly the size of a large broom closet.

After a fair few flights of stairs Sakura hoped she would never have to make acquaintances with again as their over all steepness made her extremely nervous to traverse without a bit of chakra to help her anchor her feet, Kakashi wrenched open a solemn looking door and ushered her inside. He gestured for her to sit again in a small wooden chair towards the far side of the room but still in the open.

The room was cold and though not necessarily unfriendly it was not welcoming, either. The walls were a dismal shade of shoal gray, completely devoid of decoration, and the lack of windows made Sakura certain she was underground. A bare light bulb lit the room from the center of the ceiling and kept the pink haired kunoichi from seeing into the shadowy corners of the room. She was sure the poor lighting was intentional and the corners were actually perfectly empty. The key to interrogation was to make the mind weak, and what better way to make the conscious weak than by having it prey upon itself? Her mother had always said the things you imagined were much worse than reality.

"Just sit tight here for a moment," he said as she sat down. "Someone will be here to talk to you then."

At that point he shut the door and left her alone and Sakura began to realize that this was definitely no genjutsu. Naruto had triggered something with his seals and sent her someplace completely different than where she had been before. She would bet anything Naruto had been working on a time-space jutsu and she just happened to be his chosen lab rat of the day. What exactly the knuckle head had trying to do was a mystery to her and what she should do about it, unfortunately, equally baffling.

The stairs creaked and out of the darkness descended a man Sakura was surprised to already know.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter Two

**Author's Note: **I'm still not sorry. I kind of incorporated some canon here but to be perfectly honest I'm not even trying anymore.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is (c) Masashi Kishimoto.

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**Recover : Chapter Two**

_Did it make you feel so clever? Did you wear it on your sleeve?_  
_Did you see another lifetime where I was not a part so far entwined?_

Everything about him was terribly familiar. The way his bangs fell, his high pony tail, and his strong jaw were all immediately recognizable to her because he was the man who had shouldered the responsibilities of being Sakura's father as long as he was alive. Over the years he had chased away boys, footed the bill for sleepovers that left his house a mess, and been around in general when Sakura's real father was no where to be seen. Of course, Sakura was realizing he hadn't done any of those things.

Yet.

If she thought Kakashi-sensei had looked incredibly young, it was nothing compared to the lineless face of Yamanaka Inoichi. The familiar man crossed the room quickly in a loping gait and Sakura gulped, her body suddenly tense. He stood before her and crossed his arms, his face impassive and without even a single fleck of emotion or recognition.

"Alright," he growled impatiently, "let's start with the basics. Name?"

"Haruno Sakura."

"Age?"

"Eighteen."

He circled her chair. "What's your purpose in this village?"

"I live here."

He slapped the back of her head in the same way one would swat a child who had said something naughty. "Don't lie."

"I wasn't lying, Inoichi-san," Sakura said grumpily.

The older ninja stopped before her, bending at the waist so that his face was at equal height with hers. He quirked a brow, "And how do you know my name?"

"I live here," she repeated, hoping this younger version of the man she knew wasn't somehow less patient or more violent than the Inoichi of the future. Luckily, he only swatted at her head again.

"If you don't believe me then use that some of your mind jutsu," the girl taunted. She tapped her temple. "I'm a book waiting to be read."

For the briefest moment she saw a look of utter contempt pass over Inoichi's face. He did not like being told what to do. Sakura mentally shrugged it off; he just wasn't Ino's father yet. It wasn't too surprising that he didn't acquiesce to her request. Instead examined her coolly before speaking once more.

"Alright," he said at last. "I'll humor you. If you live here, what is the Village Year?"

Sakura bit her lip, "Actually, I was hoping you could tell me."

"Village Year 197."

"That can't be true because at least twenty years from now it won't even be Village Year 180."

Inoichi was silent again in the utter failure of his bluff. Perhaps he was considering that maybe this girl was actually who she said she was; a member of the village. Or perhaps he was considering the possibility of just reaching into her brain and rooting around until he found the answers he sought because she certainly wasn't being forthcoming. He thought a moment longer and then a moment more and Sakura felt she was gaining better insight as to why it always took Ino so long to come to a decision.

He then entered her mind without warning.

It was always awkward to have another presence in your brain. There was nothing off limits. Things that Sakura herself had completely forgotten or else buried under more mundane memories could be drug up to the surface and relived as if they were actually happening. Inoichi ripped through her thoughts, figuratively throwing all her mental filing around with great flamboyance. Heat rose to her cheeks as he stopped on a particularly embarrassing and private moment with one of her earlier boyfriends when she had been fifteen. Those had been dark, dark times indeed when she had been the only resident member of Team 7 to be found in Konoha, what with Kakashi on an extended mission and Naruto and Sasuke doing... whatever it was they had done for those three years.

Inoichi thankfully dropped the memory, moving onward to search out less frivolous things. Ino had once described to her how the mind worked; like a labyrinth full of long and winding corridors that split off into hundreds of thousands of rooms. It had been explained to Sakura that memories and knowledge were carefully categorized according to each individual person, usually with the most important things being buried deep down the longest halls and in the darkest rooms as the mind's natural defensive mechanism.

Sakura was very sure Inoichi was getting dangerously close to that dark, furthest room.

He stumbled upon one of Sakura's earliest memories, one that played like a grainy film and involved a middle aged man with dull red hair. He had a large smile and big, happy green eyes. It was how Sakura preferred to remember her biological father, the way he had been before he lost himself in a bottle and disappeared for good. The memory was respectfully replaced and Inoichi moved on to find another hidden away memory, this time of Sakura's recollection of Sasuke leaving the village. He watched this in full down to the last excruciating detail.

They continued like this for several hours, Inoichi probing her mind and hunting out Sakura's ties to Konoha and bonds to her people. She was dragged through battles she had never wished to see in the first place and reminded how horrible it had been each time she had lost one of the people precious to her, including him. She cried fresh tears for Kakashi as any amount of healing that had occurred was torn away and finally, Inoichi left her mind.

Sakura blotted her eyes with the back of her hand and Inoichi presented her with a handkerchief from his hip pouch, looking extremely uncomfortable and assuring her it was clean. The silence between them was only broken by the occasional sniffle and after a while, Sakura looked up to gauge Inoichi's response to all that he had just learned.

He looked surprisingly calm for a man who had seen the end, but he gazed at her now in a way that made him all the more familiar to her. He had gained some sort of borrowed recognition of her, obviously realizing that in the future they were both fairly important to each other.

"So," he said slowly into the quiet. "You're from here?"

Sakura smiled brokenly, "Yes, sir."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely.

It was unclear exactly what he was apologizing for but Sakura appreciated it all the same. She clutched his handkerchief tightly in her palm and said, "It's alright."

"How did he send you here?" Inoichi asked seriously. "What type of jutsu did that kid, Naruto, use?"

"I wish I knew," Sakura said honestly, shrugging her shoulders. "I had hoped it was a genjutsu, but I don't think that's true at all anymore."

"Clearly," the blond man said, taking once more to pacing the room as he decided his next move."I have to tell the Hokage," he thought aloud. "The things you know, he could–"

"He could what?" Sakura injected. "Ruin the future?"

Inoichi shot her a deadpan look that reminded her errily of Ino. "I think it could use a little 'ruining,' and by 'ruining' I actually mean 'fixing.'"

"I think we should just send me back," Sakura suggested instead. "I would really like to just be sent back."

"I'm sure you would, Sakura," Inoichi agreed, "but since you don't know what Naruto did... that would be difficult."

The pink haired girl huffed indifferently. "If Naruto can do it, anyone can do it. It was clearly a space-time jutsu since I obviously crossed a lot of time and space. Isn't that like, a specialty of the Yondaime? Flying Thunder God and such?"

Inoichi muttered something that sounded a lot like '_you know too much'. _

"This is going to be a real bother, isn't it?" he said, already sounding exasperated with the situation.

"You sound like a Nara," Sakura accused lightly from her seat.

Inoichi cast her a sidelong glance and generally looked unhappy. "I have to tell the Hokage your origins."

"That's a terrible idea," Sakura replied. "I already told you we should just send me..."

"And that's an even worse idea because it's _impossible,_" Inoichi countered.

She put on her best begging face and hoped against all hope it would be as easy to manipulate a younger Inoichi as it was to coerce his daughter Ino into more or less doing what she wanted.

"Couldn't it just, you know, be our _secret_ until we find a way to put me back in my time, Inoichi-san?"

A small wail of success built up in Sakura and threatened to spill out as Inoichi took serious time mulling the suggestion over. It was clearly in the Yamanaka blood to love secrets and Inoichi was no exception. In fact, Sakura would later learn that Inoichi's lust in his younger years for every last gruesome detail of the latest gossip far outstripped his daughter's, even so far as making Ino look positively tame. He paced a bit more, finally stopping and fixing Sakura with a soul-eating stare.

"I have to tell the Hokage something," he allowed. "But I don't have to tell him everything, if you're so certain about protecting this future of yours."

A rush of relief filled her. "Thank you, Inoichi-san."

"Though I'm really not sure why you'd want to save something so blatantly awful," he mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Because it's mine," Sakura replied immediately, though admitting inwardly he had a valid point.

Everything about her future was muddled and as he had said, blatantly awful. Her genin team would start off harmlessly dysfunctional enough and would escalate into a catastrophic rivalry and ghost of a friendship that would end in war and death. Her sensei would disappear to an unknown fate and she would be helpless through the whole ordeal. She would never get a real boyfriend and she would start falling in love with Naruto of all people and Ino would make fun of her about it and Hinata would stop speaking to her, as if she had ever spoken before and...

And it was a long road and nothing about it was easy, but it wasn't her place to _fix_ it.

She didn't even know where to begin.

"So what are we going to do?"

"I'm going to tell the Hokage that you arrived here by an experimental space-time ninjutsu," he said simply, as if that didn't violate everything they had just talked about.

"But I thought we were keeping this secret!"

"We are," Inoichi said smoothly. "I'm also going to tell him you have no solid memories of your past or our futures and that it would be best to keep an eye on you."

Sakura's face drained of color. They were going to keep her here underground forever, testing her, trying to find out what she knew, what secrets she held...

"And in the interest of fairness, I'm going to appeal to his overly benevolent nature to get you into a role where you can 'regain' your memories."

Wait, what?

"Wait, what?"

Inoichi shrugged, "I'll tell him there were some vague hints in your mind that alluded to life as a kunoichi working in the Hokage Tower. Isn't that what you did?"

Sakura nodded slowly, "Yes..." More or less, at least.

"So you'll probably be doing more of the same. Everyone knows Minato needs an assistant. Maybe you could do something about all the paperwork before Koharu kills him?"

They both ignored the fact that they both knew now, Sakura in slightly greater detail, that he was due to be dying soon anyway.

"I guess," Sakura conceded, thoroughly bewildered by the situation Inoichi had just presented.

Did the Hokage really trust him that much?

He seemed to read her mind and in all honesty, he might have. "Don't worry. Minato acts tough, but he's pussycat. I'll convince him you aren't a threat and in no time you'll be inducted into his circle of 'friends' never to be thought of again."

That sounded like another blond haired, blue eyed boy she knew. Still, she had her doubts. They were talking about a man who happened to be the Hokage, after all, and idiots didn't get made Hokage. She wasn't sure he could be so easily fooled. Inoichi smiled at her apparent disbelief.

"Just wait here," he said. "I'll be back with the verdict."

And so she waited, deciding when he returned roughly an hour later with the a-ok from the big man that there was _definitely_ something to be said about genetics. Only someone who had contributed half of Naruto's genome could be so easily convinced that someone could come from the future, pose no threat, and would make a nice secretary. Inoichi smiled at her in a faintly 'I told you so' way and led her out of the bowels of the Hokage Tower and back out into the sunlit streets of Konoha. From the faint orange twinge of the light, Sakura deduced it was nearing sundown.

They walked a mostly familiar path to Sakura's feet in the direction of the Yamanaka's flower shop. She had naturally traversed those exact streets thousands of times in her life, but everything was just a little bit different now. The people dressed differently and their haircuts all seemed vaguely out of style to her and most of the shops she saw were not the shops she knew. She was very put out to see that the clothing store she had been in with Ino earlier that day was currently bookstore with a very large banner declaring the debut novel of a new series from Jiraiya of the Sannin, _Icha Icha Delirium_.

Sakura couldn't help but smile. And so his reputation began its downward descent.

"You'll mostly be allowed free roam of the village for a few days," Inoichi explained quietly as they walked. "You know, if you ignore the ANBU tailing you. They won't watch you too long, just long enough to make sure you don't try anything funny. So don't. I'm sticking my neck out for you on the premise of a relationship we don't actually have and I really don't want to regret it. You'll be under my care during this time so anything you do comes back to me."

Sakura was touched by the casual admittance and acceptance of his future role in her life as surrogate father.

"Also, you no longer have a surname. If anyone asks you anything, you're Sakura and only Sakura. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

They arrived in front of the flower shop on the edge of the district that had been in the Yamanaka family for generations and Sakura found it to be virtually the same as it was in her own time. She had always known that Inoichi had inherited it from his mother and Ino had liked to brag it would be hers one day when they were younger.

"Um, I guess you already know the layout," he asserted as they entered the shop. "Business downstairs, living upstairs. There's a guest room..."

"Upstairs, second door on the left," Sakura finished.

Inoichi grinned, "Yeah." He went behind the counter and produced the cash box, unlocking it and counting out what didn't quite amount to a hefty sum before putting the box away again. He handed the money to Sakura. "This should be enough for you to go get the things you'll need. In a few weeks once you're all checked out after surveillance, you'll start work at the Tower and you can pay me back."

Sakura accepted the bills. "Thank you, Inoichi-san."

He dismissed her with a wave, "Not a big deal. Do you think you can handle going to the shops on your own or do you need an escort?"

"Won't I be escorted anyway?" she asked sarcastically. She had spotted no less than three ANBU operatives tailing them on their way to the flower shop.

Inoichi laughed, "Fair enough. Tell you what, you'll probably have an easier time of getting your things together without me and I've got a report to file, so you go ahead before they close. Just don't stay out wandering or anything because that would be a _little_ suspicious."

Sakura thought he was being paranoid, but agreed not to stay out late. She really didn't know what she would do anyway. None of her friends were born yet, or else they were babies. She wasn't quite sure. Kakashi-sensei looked like he might have been all of thirteen, so Sakura thought it was safer to assume her generation didn't quite exist yet. The thought boggled her brain and she swore that as soon as she got back to her own time, she was going to kill Naruto. Whenever she actually got back that was. Inoichi had a point; she didn't know what Naruto had done, and she should have asked him more questions before she had foolishly allowed him to test his jutsu. If Sakura had to guess that decision was easily in her top ten most idiotic life choices. Maybe even top five. She pocketed the money Inoichi gave her and told him she would be back in an hour or two.

After leaving the flower shop, Sakura headed to the shopping district they had already walked through once on their way home. In the waning twilight Konoha lit up and Sakura marveled at how a place so familiar could be so alien. There were a few shops she recognized and had even patronized in her own time and Sakura made quick work of procuring her essentials. A few sets of clothes and the necessary toiletries were all she really needed. All in all it took a little over an hour and she was back at the flower shop putting her few things away in Inoichi's guest room and being fawned over by Yamanaka Masako, Inoichi's mother. As it turned out, Masako was the source of her son and future grand daughter's nosiness. Who was she? Why was she here? How long would she stay? The woman's questions were relentless and Sakura did her best to field them all without saying anything too specific.

Thankfully, Inoichi rescued her when he finished his report. Sakura had a suspicion that it was his formal report on their afternoon together but she decided not to ask. It was rude to ask other shinobi about their reports, anyway. He fended his mother off of Sakura valiantly, shooing the older woman away. His behavior and meanness honestly reminded Sakura of a teenager moaning at someone to get out of their room despite the fact that he was a fully grown man. Masako had a good attitude about it, leaving them with the promise of dinner being served soon, and Sakura briefly wondered if this was normal for them. She didn't really know considering Ino's grandmother had passed away when they were still little girls.

Inoichi made a face. "Sorry about her, she's nuts," he said darkly.

Sakura shrugged, "I've seen worse."

Whether or not Inoichi agreed was irrelevant and either way he simply launched into an explanation about how it was Tuesday and that meant he would be going out for drinks with Shikaku and Choza She was welcome to come along if she wanted, but Sakura could tell the invitation was forced out of politeness, so she declined.

"Suit yourself," Inoichi shrugged.

Sakura was only too happy to oblige. The more she thought about it the more she really didn't want to get acquainted with anyone here in the past.

This place was full of ghosts.

She was also exhausted. Her body was catching up with itself and where she had been completely out of it upon arrival with chakra reserves reduced so low that Kakashi had needed to carry her to the Tower, her body was now replenishing and balancing and begging for sleep. Everything about the past eight hours of her life had been thoroughly ridiculous and as much as she wanted to go ahead and get started on her return back home to throttle Naruto, her basic needs were much more urgent. She wasn't in any immediate danger here. The Fourth was Hokage during a time between wars and until his death and the events surrounding it, Konoha was a relatively safe place. She didn't anticipate hanging around in Konoha's not-so-distant past for very long with him around, anyway. There was no man more proficient in space-time ninjutsu, except for maybe the Second and even then, Namikaze Minato was a pretty close study. Sakura felt certain that if anyone stood a chance of sending her home it was him.

The sooner the better.

In the weeks that followed, Sakura ran out of excuses not to go out with Inoichi and his friends. He didn't think her opinion of not wanting to get acquainted with anyone in the past was valid.

"You already know us," he said incredulously.

Sakura was half inclined to agree. On her fifth night there she had caved in and went out with Inoichi and his teammates for barbecue. She couldn't say she was surprised by this; barbecue seemed to be a favorite of Ino-Shika-Cho trios everywhere. More than a little bitter with the entire situation she hadn't expected to enjoy the evening in the slightest but found herself wrapped in conversation with Shikaku's wife, Yoshino, who definitely had her husband completely whipped. In all honesty being with them wasn't all that different from hanging out with Team 10. The similarities were frightening but once she had agreed to go out with them once, her presence was thereafter expected regardless of how Sakura felt about it.

"It's good for you," Inoichi said one night as they came crawling in from some seedy bar. He was much drunker than Sakura, who didn't get drunk as a rule, and was leaning on her frame for support. "You dunno how long you'll be here and you can't be alone all the time, you'll go crazy."

He was probably right. She dumped him in his room unceremoniously.

"Goodnight, Inoichi."

The next morning she was called up to meet with the Hokage she all but ran from the house. It had been three weeks since her arrival and she was back up to par, her chakra fully restored and her body seemingly as fit as it had ever been. When she arrived at the Tower she went straight to Minato's broom closet of an office and rapped on the door, surprised when he actually answered it instead of calling for her to come in like she was used to Tsunade doing. Something told her that the Yondaime was a bit more hands-on than her teacher.

"Sakura," he said brightly, smiling at her. "Come in. I didn't expect you to get here so early."

"Sorry, Hokage-sama," Sakura said, stepping around him and into the small office.

He closed the door and shuffled awkwardly to get behind his desk – which was admittedly too large for the room – and Sakura wondered how he had gotten to the door so quickly. Maybe he had jumped the desk; it seemed like an abuse of hiraishin. He gestured for her to sit down and Sakura complied, perching carefully on the edge of the seat provided. Suddenly he looked very stern and intimidating and exactly what Sakura thought a Hokage ought to look like.

"Sakura, I need to know if there's anything you're hiding."

She was slightly taken aback by his directness. Since Minato had called her here, she had assumed she'd been cleared after ANBU surveillance; she hadn't expected him to ask a question like that. "What do you mean, Hokage-sama?"

He waved her off, "Inoichi only filled me on the bare bones of your origin, and I'm willing to accept that, but I need to know if there's anything you're hiding."

Sakura fidgeted. She wasn't sure what the right answer was here. It seemed like a stupid thing to do to lie to the Hokage.

"Well..." she trailed off.

Minato waited and Sakura realized she was dealing with the most dangerous type of shinobi; a patient one.

"Yes and no," she said at length. He raised a brow at her almost imperceptibly. "Nothing important, Hokage-sama."

She doubted he believed her, but he seemed to accept her answer. "Alright. Inoichi said you were a kunoichi; I can't say I didn't expect you to have your secrets." At this he laughed and gave her a warm smile, which Sakura hesitantly returned. "He also said you didn't remember very much about the place you came from."

Belatedly, Sakura remembered that part of Inoichi's lie. She put on a sullen face. "Yes, Hokage-sama. That's true."

"That's unfortunate," Minato replied. His voice sounded sympathetic.

A beat passed between them and the silence was deafening. Sakura didn't know what to do.

"So... do you think you could still do the job?"

Sakura tilted her head. "What?"

"You know," Minato said earnestly. "The assistant stuff. It's only fair since I'm sure you're expecting me to bust my ass to send you home..."

Sakura eyed the stacks of paperwork that teetered precariously on his desk, then glanced at Minato. He too was looking at his desk with a bewildered expression that made Sakura wonder just how long he had actually been Hokage. That was the face of a man who was used to being out in the field cleaning dirt out from under his finger nails with a kunai and having hardtack rations for dinner, tax reforms and trade unions and village infrastructure. He caught her peeking at him at shot her what had to be his most beseeching look which happened to be one Sakura recognized all too well.

It was the same look Naruto had been abusing her with for years.

"I can do it," Sakura said. Her voice was a little shaky and she wasn't quite certain why.

She couldn't have said no now, not even if she tried.

**TBC**


	3. Chapter Three

**Author's Note:** Shout out to Lori for leaving not one but two reviews on the last chapter. I loved them both; thank you.

Further 'attempts' at canon were made for this chapter. It's bullshit.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is (c) Masashi Kishimoto.

**Recover : Chapter Three**

_I was left to my own devices  
Many days fell away with nothing to show_

Sakura had gotten an apartment. After almost three months of working with Minato she was still no closer to getting home than she had been the day she arrived, much to the Yondaime Hokage's chagrin. She knew he was steadily and constantly working on it, but the process wasn't moving along at the pace he had intended.

"I don't have the time to focus on it like I need to if I'm going to crack it just like that," he apologized. "If I had the time I think..."

It was true; Minato really didn't have any time. Hokages were busy as a general rule and as a peacetime Hokage, Minato's workload was sky high and particularly taxing. Literally. A peaceful village was a growing village and Sakura spent an inordinate amount of time explaining the jargon and nuances found in the submitted forms and proposals. It was a body of knowledge she had absorbed after years of being the Godaime's apprentice and lucky for him, Minato was a quick study. Lucky for her that working as his assistant was a thousand times more pleasant than working with Tsunade. This was largely due to the fact that the Yondaime seemed to be for the most part actually interested in doing his job. Sakura had caught herself once or twice thinking how shameful it was he died so young.

Minato was just so inherently _good_.

Anything less than perfection didn't suit him.

Still, he didn't have time to devise a jutsu to send her home and no one else had the skills necessary to even try, so Sakura was stuck there in the past until further notice. It had become evident after her first few weeks working at the Tower that Operation Get Sakura Home would be one for the the long haul, so when her first paycheck came in she paid Inoichi back. With her second she had paid the deposit on the lease for an apartment near the Uchiha District. The rentals were cheaper there – probably because it was considered taking your life into your own hands to live so close to the Uchiha. Sakura didn't really care. She was more concerned about her third paycheck and buying some new clothes because the sheer amount of washing her grand total of five outfits required to keep her from smelling like a neanderthal was starting to leave them a bit threadbare.

"You could've stayed with us if you had wanted," Inoichi insisted for the hundredth time.

He had rushed over to inspect her apartment upon hearing of its location and was apparently disappointed to find it decent and not a hovel of poverty so he could force Sakura to move back in with him. Inoichi had brought with him a gift of sake as a housewarming gift but Sakura had the distinct feeling he really didn't wish her happiness. She suspected this had an awful lot to do with the fact that Masako was infinitely more interested in Sakura's 'exciting' life working for the Hokage than she was in Inoichi's own business and he was sorely missing her distraction.

Sakura shrugged, sliding the sofa that had come furnished with the apartment so that it sat beneath the window. "If I'm going to stay here, then I'm going to be independent, Inoichi."

The blond man grumbled a bit but seemed to accept it. "You'll still come out with us sometimes, won't you?"

Sakura thought about the seedy bars and fattening restaurants Inoichi and his friends frequented. "We'll see."

"Oh come _on_ we aren't that bad, and you don't have any other friends."

"I do so have friends!" she protested. The cushions on the couch looked really lopsided.

"Name one," Inoichi challenged.

Sakura tugged at the cushion futilely. "Uh... Minato."

Not only could she hear Inoichi's groan of exasperation, but she could actually feel it reverberate through the house. "He's not your friend, he's your boss, and he's the fucking _Hokage_, Sakura, he doesn't even **have** friends."

"Now you're just being rude," she huffed, giving up on the crooked futon and pushing past him.

Inoichi scowled, "I'm being realistic."

"Drop it," Sakura called from the kitchen where she was putting away the bare minimum of cooking ware and dishes she had bought. "Minato is nice and you shouldn't be mean."

She had a feeling that Inoichi was going to to do anything but drop it and was surprised when he appeared in the door frame looking almost physically pained from keeping silent. There was no way he was letting this go, she decided. Inoichi was hellbent on making her a social butterfly and he was absolutely wounded she wasn't cooperating the way he wanted. It was unfortunate he had his knickers in a twist about it, but Sakura wasn't all that bothered. She was stacking plates in the cupboard when Inoichi spoke again.

"I just want you to be happy, Sakura."

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him, softening at the sincerity in his voice. "I am happy, Inoichi," she insisted. "Honest."

His expression said he wasn't convinced, but he nodded curtly in confirmation. "If you change your mind you know where to find us."

He left soon after and Sakura was free to settle into her apartment as she wished. It was very small with just three rooms and a tiny, very pink and outdated bathroom. There was an old fashioned medicine cabinet above the sink in which all of Sakura's cosmetics fit neatly and all her clothes were neatly tucked in the bottom drawer of the short dresser in the bedroom. She had paid extra for the furnishings that came with the rental and while none of them were very high quality, they weren't a leech on her wallet. The crooked sofa was annoying and the futon was a little lumpy, but she would live. Her only real complaint was the faint scent of mothballs that lingered in the hall. It was coming from the linen closet and something really needed to be done about it, but Sakura already knew she was just going to let it be.

Fixing up the place was an admission it was her home.

She finished putting the kitchen together and sat down on the sofa, lounging languidly and watching the dust swirl in the sunlight streaming through the window. It was Saturday and she had the day off from Minato but in the absence of work Sakura had no idea what to do with herself, as always. The pace her life had taken on was slow and meandering and honestly, pretty boring. Inoichi was right; she didn't have any friends. She supposed she _could_ train – she hadn't hit a training field since the day Naruto transported her – but the idea was unappealing. Who would she train with, anyway? Sakura lifted a lock of pink hair to eye level and examined the tips.

They were fraying and split. She needed a haircut.

The rest of her Saturday was devoted to finding a good salon. In the end she found one and as much as she wanted to treat herself to a shampooing and hot oil treatment, she couldn't afford it and settled for just the trim. Around her ladies chatted about this and that, but Sakura stayed quiet. They were talking about the kind of gossip you find in tabloids and she didn't know the first thing about any of the people they all seemed to know by name. It embarrassed her and she didn't know why.

When she left the salon she was flustered and itchy where her stylist hadn't quite closed her cape tight enough. Checking her wallet, Sakura frowned at her meager funds. Her rate of pay was worse than ever and she was missing the financial security she had enjoyed as a jonin. She had enough to pick up groceries for her new apartment but not much else.

How depressing.

On Monday she went to work. Like usual she beat Minato to the office (the first thing he did every morning was sit a meeting with his council members and his tiny office couldn't accommodate them) and was making coffee when the Hokage joined her. In a flash he was by her side, wringing the pot from her hand and snatching away the filters. Sakura blinked in confusion, eyes snapping back and forth between him and the three pronged kunai in the wall in front of her that hadn't been there half a moment before.

She couldn't keep the shock out of her voice."What are you doing?"

Minato shrugged, "Making the coffee. Seriously, the stuff you brew is atrocious. If it were any worse I'd have you arrested for attempted murder."

"It's not that bad," she huffed angrily.

Minato just smiled and measured out the grounds to his preferred strength and ignored her, turning on the machine and taking a seat at his desk. He picked up a scroll and broke the seal as Sakura began to file the reports from the day before. The little office filled with the sounds of the coffeemaker gurgling and Sakura carelessly slamming cabinets. Minato spoke out nonchalantly over the noise.

"You cut your hair."

Sakura stopped what she was doing and stared at him; he hadn't even looked up from his scroll. A bit weirded out, she slowly began filing again. "Yeah, I did. It was getting a bit long."

At this Minato snorted. "If you think _that's_ long then you should meet Kushina."

She rolled her eyes. If anything were fair in the world she would have been paid extra for the amount of Kushina this or Kushina that she was subjected to day to day. If they weren't talking about her glorious hair (it shone like fresh blood apparently; Sakura was sure that it was hair _only_ a shinobi could like) then they were talking about one of her many other desirous traits. Kushina is a great cook; Kushina's laugh sounds like bells. Kushina never took all the blankets. Kushina, Kushina, Kushina.

Minato was a man in love.

Sakura supposed it was kind of cute, the most powerful man in the village reduced to a blithering idiot by one woman. She would have liked to have met the elusive redhead but the opportunity just hadn't arisen. Sure, she had seen Kushina around – with all that hair she was hard to miss – but she generally excused herself whenever Naruto's mother came to visit Naruto's father, which admittedly wasn't that often.

"She knows she's a distraction," was all Minato said about it, blushing brilliantly when Sakura asked about his girlfriend's lack of presence around the Tower. Sakura didn't think Kushina's physical location made that much of a difference concerning Minato's distraction level but kept it to herself. She simply settled for Minato's secondhand accounts of his girlfriend's awesomeness until finally, they met at Akimichi Choza's wedding.

She had come with Inoichi but lost him at the reception. He was around somewhere, probably not _quite_ life-threateningly inebriated in mourning over another one if his teammates being fitted with a ball and chain. Sakura couldn't say she was too surprised at his behavior; she had always known that Ino's parents had a shotgun wedding themselves. Inoichi wasn't likely to change his ways anytime soon or at least not until he learned he was responsible for a little girl. The reception was in full swing when the Yamanaka went missing and Sakura was desperate to find him before he disgraced himself table dancing or worse. She was on the hunt when he called her name.

"Sakura-san!"

It was Minato's voice raised above the cacophony and she followed the sound to where he was waving at her enthusiastically if not a little drunkenly. The Hokage's cheeks were very rosy, just like Naruto when he drank, and he was holding onto Kushina tightly with the arm not busily engaged in flagging her down. Sakura swallowed hard and waved back with a smile, crossing the room to where they were. The prospect of meeting Kushina, now that it was happening, was daunting.

She needn't have worried. Kushina was every bit as warm and friendly a person as her son.

"This is Sakura," Minato said perkily. "She helps me do the things. Sakura, this is..."

"Kushina," Sakura interrupted suddenly. She couldn't help herself. "I've heard a lot about you."

Kushina laughed and Sakura was stunned to learn that it really _did_ sound like bells, light and airy and bright. "All good things, I hope?"

"Of course!" She wasn't actually sure if Minato was aware of any bad things about Kushina.

Their conversation settled into a nice flow of even exchanges and Sakura found that she really, genuinely liked her. She was funny and sensible and between the two of them Sakura could see bits and pieces of Naruto shining like stars. She wound her bloody red hair around a thin finger and spoke to Sakura like she was speaking to a friend, telling her silly stories about her boyfriend more for the purpose of teasing Minato than anything. Minato didn't seem to care; he grinned right along with her, laughing openly at his own expense. Sakura smiled hesitantly and it didn't quite reach her eyes.

She had realized that this wasn't fair. Why should she be awarded the chance to know these people and learn their laughs? How was it right that she was there laughing and talking with _Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina_... without Naruto? Sakura felt sick despite the fact she hadn't so much as touched a drink. The guilt was overwhelming even though she knew she really had nothing to feel guilty for. It was Naruto's fault she was there in the first place; she shouldn't feel bad for simply enduring what he was responsible for putting her through.

But she did feel bad. She felt awful, like the worst kind of trash. Here she was standing around and experiencing a moment like the ones she knew Naruto had dreamed of his entire life and all she could do was stand there with a stupid half pained, half dumbfounded look on her face. Minato and Kushina carried on without even noticing her expression and how it slowly turned to steel.

"I've really got to find Inoichi!"

It was a shameless and effective attempt at escape and Sakura all but scampered away. It really was important to find Inoichi before he did something really regrettable and by the time she located the missing shinobi, she was resolved never to speak to Uzumaki Kushina again. It was unavoidable that she would have to deal with Minato, who was her boss and her only possible link home, but she didn't have to steal time from both of Naruto's parents.

"There you are," Sakura said, yanking Inoichi by the ponytail. He was talking to some girls who looked alarmingly too young for him. "C'mon, we've got to go."

"No, Sakura," he slurred. "Misaki here was just telling me about..."

Sakura immediately let go and left him alone, glancing around at the five or so girls who were swarming around the blond shinobi. One of these women was Misaki, meaning one of them was Ino's mother. She looked a little closer and realized Misaki was definitely the girl who looked like she might have been sixteen holding on to Inoichi's arm. Sakura hadn't known that this was how they met but decided it was probably best to leave them to their own devices. Actually, it was probably better if she left entirely.

Sakura had come to the wedding with Inoichi, and in the end she left alone. She went back to her apartment but it wasn't enough. She wanted then more than ever to go _home_, to gossip with a Yamanaka about people she actually knew and to work at the hospital and do something more useful than push papers. She wanted to go on missions with Naruto and sleep on pallets that were too close together, to be with people she loved and know they loved her, too. Instead she slept next door to a full Uchiha District under a Mountain with four faces and when she woke up, she decided to do what any kunoichi worth her salt would do in her situation.

If Minato wasn't going to find the time to help her then she would just help herself.

It was almost like being a genin again. Sakura didn't know very much about space-time ninjutsu or sealing techniques beyond her summoning contract with Katsuyu. It hadn't ever been of interest to her as a medic or a genjutsu type. The library had been her first stop on her quest for knowledge and she had gone armed with standard issue rucksack borrowed from storage at the Tower and left heavily weighted down with books and scrolls she had every intention to study until her eyeballs fell out of her skull.

As it turned out space-time ninjutsu was really boring, mostly theoretical, and Sakura wound up painting her toenails instead two hours into her first study session. With each passing week it became harder and more difficult to stay focused and the complexity of her distractions descended the point where she would look for just about any excuse to put the lifeless scrolls and articles down. The only thing that kept her at it was the fact that Minato seemed to not be picking up anything to do with getting her home, though that might have a thing or two to do with his fixation with Kiri.

"They're up to something," he told her when they were finally moving in to his remodeled office. "They're up to something and it can't be good."

Whatever the reason, his attention was still divided. Minato was everywhere and everything to all people. Inoichi was wrong to have said that he didn't have friends. As far as Sakura could tell Minato was everyone's friend, though she did sometimes get the feeling he didn't know anyone's name with 100% certainty. The fact was Minato cared earnestly about the village and everyone and everything within it, and that fact wore him thin. Sakura warned him that he was going to get wrinkles, to which he had responded with a tasteless joke about how shinobi usually die before having to worry about things like that. Sakura hit him.

She didn't think it was funny.

In the afternoon before Sakura left the Tower on the day they moved into the new office, Minato made her a promise. He would crack her jutsu before the winter festival. But that was June 12th and on June 13th, Nohara Rin went missing.

Her jutsu fell by the wayside after that.

It was attributed to Kirigakure, just as Minato had feared. He swore angrily and swiped at his desk when he received the intel and for the first time Sakura shied away from him until he calmed down. It was easy to forget he was a legendary nin when he was doing stupid things like making paper clip necklaces and insisting they wear them until someone questioned him (no one did), but he _was_ Konoha's Yellow Flash and he _was _terrifying. Papers fluttered through the air and Sakura held her breath.

Kakashi was as frantic. Her future sensei had appeared almost as soon as news of Rin's abduction broke and kept repeating over and over to his own sensei that he was supposed to protect Rin, to keep her safe. Sakura was bewildered. This was a part of Konoha's history in which she had no education; Kakashi had never told her about this.

Eventually Minato allowed Kakashi to go after her and Sakura was at a loss after that. Minato was tense beyond belief and she had no idea what to do or how to help him, so she hovered around the office awkwardly and kept things running as quietly and efficiently as she could. The village had to keep moving despite Minato's preoccupation and Sakura shouldered the burden marvelously while Minato didn't seem to notice. Significant portions of his time were spent in council with his advisers and with the Sandaime, discussing whether or not they would go to war again with Kiri. This didn't concern Sakura. She would have known if the Leaf hadn't entered another scuffle with Kiri. They were safe from that, at least.

When Minato wasn't in meetings it seemed like Kushina was constantly stopping by and checking in. As was her custom Sakura steered clear of the couple when they were together but again, Minato didn't notice. Kushina knew what to do for him. She would visit and they would speak in hushed tones and when she left, Minato would be visibly relaxed. Sakura didn't know where Kushina went when she was away from the Tower, but Minato never went home so neither did Sakura.

It was a hard grinding five days before Kakashi came back to the village.

He came back without Rin.

Kiri had made Rin their Trojan horse. Embittered in the aftermath of the Third Shinobi World War, they were after Konoha and they were after Minato. They sealed the Three Tails into her with the intention to use the beast to destroy Konoha, but Rin sacrificed herself to avoid that end. It was very heroic, Sakura guessed. But the way that it happened...

Kakashi killed his teammate. Rin forced his hand.

Sakura was heartbroken for him. She was heartbroken for Minato, too.

They both took it very, very hard. Kakashi didn't speak to anyone for weeks and Minato was worried. When Sakura expressed her belief that Kakashi would be okay – which she knew to be 100% the truth, from experience – Minato shot her an unnervingly dead stare.

"Kakashi is my final student," he told Sakura bluntly. "Of the genin I trained, he's the only one left alive."

That didn't really explain much to Sakura, but she let it alone. She also knew first hand what it was like to be a part of a broken team. Minato handled the situation just the way she expected of him: by quietly worrying from afar and acting like nothing horrible had happened whenever he did interact with Kakashi. It was exactly the same show she had been subjected to when Sasuke and Naruto left the village and she was Kakashi's last remaining student. It was at least somewhat acceptable behavior for Minato. Kakashi was a jonin. He didn't need a sensei, but Sakura had still been a genin when Kakashi had backed away from the broken remains of Team Seven. She'd had to find another teacher.

Not that Sakura was bitter or anything. That was just the whiny way of saying Kakashi stepped aside so that Sakura could become the Godaime Hokage's disciple unhindered. But it would be a lie to say there wasn't some small part of Sakura that was still a whiny little girl.

In the end they didn't go to war with Kiri because Konoha couldn't afford it. There weren't enough shinobi to spare and the village coffers couldn't finance a full scale campaign. Instead a few more outposts were set up at the border and a handful of chuunin stationed indefinitely. To Minato it seemed terribly inadequate but there was nothing further he could do; Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu tied his hands. The Yondaime was furious and Sakura was stunned at his intensity.

She would never have pegged Minato for a warmonger, but the Hokage was a _hawk_.

Things were different after that. Kushina stopped visiting the Tower two and three times a day, then she stopped visiting at all. At first Sakura didn't notice and even when she did, she didn't care. It was only after a month of not laying eyes on the redhead that Sakura began to get a bit leery. Curiosity got the better of her eventually and she asked.

"Where is Kushina, Hokage-sama?"

His responded with a succinct, "No idea."

Sakura frowned. "She hasn't come by much lately."

"Is that so?"

He didn't even look at her when he spoke but Sakura could tell her pestering had put him in a bad mood. The poor temperament didn't suit him one bit but he didn't seem to be lifting himself out of it any time soon. Sakura didn't know what his problem was and when she left the Tower, she was concerned. From his reaction she surmised that he and Kushina were having a row but it was unclear to Sakura what exactly the fighting was about. Interestingly enough it was Kakashi who clarified it for her. On her way home she was stopped by the pair of Kakashi and Gai, the latter of whom wanted her to be the judge in a race to determine which of them was the better ninja. After Kakashi lost, she asked him about his sensei and whether or not he knew what was wrong.

"Kushina-san is upset with sensei because she found out he tried to start a war when she told him not to," Kakashi told her with a shrug.

"Oh."

That seemed like a very stupid thing to be mad about, especially considering nothing had come out of Minato's war efforts anyway. Her expression gave her thoughts away and Kakashi picked at his sleeve, disinterested.

"Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous," he said. "Sensei really ought to have expected it though. Kushina-san is a pacifist."

"A pacifist," Sakura repeated. It was an unusual trait for a ninja.

Kakashi fixed her with a lazy stare. "This is the first time they've had a fight since you've known them, isn't it?"

She nodded, "Yeah..."

"It happens," he drawled, waving a hand at her dismissively and turning away. "They always get over it eventually."

Kakashi was right, of course. He knew Minato and Kushina better than Sakura did and he was exactly on the mark. They did get over it. They got over it and then some. Kushina started to come around the office again, which was inconvenient for Sakura since she still felt the need to run and hide whenever Kushina was near, but it was alright if it meant things were more or less normal again. Minato's temperament improved and though he wasn't quite as playful as he had been before Rin's abduction, he was back to waxing poetic about Kushina this and that and Sakura was pleased to hear it. She just smiled and pretended to listen. Maybe if she had paid better attention she would have seen it coming.

One day Sakura went to work and Minato was talking about his girlfriend. The next he spoke about his wife.

**TBC**


End file.
